DEER ISLE – School officials in Deer Isle and Stonington should know more in January about when their new elementary school will be completed.

That’s when David Poulin, owner of D.L. Poulin Contractors of Brunswick, the main contractor on the project, will have a breakdown of the construction for the $18 million project. Upon completion of the school, it will house pupils in kindergarten through eighth-grade from the two towns.

Construction delays have pushed back the project’s completion date beyond the original Jan. 8 deadline. It may be the end of January before the job is done.

Although officials have said the work at the school has been done well, they have been concerned about the delays and have blamed the subcontractors working on the project.

“It been a question of pace rather than problems,” Superintendent of Schools Robert Webster said Monday.

The move from the existing buildings – which had been scheduled to take place during the long Martin Luther King holiday weekend – has been postponed.

Webster said the move may have to wait until February vacation. Meanwhile, the school department will have to develop a new plan for the move.

Contractor Poulin was more optimistic Monday.

“We’ve got classrooms that are 99 percent ready. Things are rapidly getting done,” said Poulin, who recently took over the direct management of the school project. “We might not be as late as people have been led to believe.”

Poulin said he did not have a definite completion date, but said he may soon have answers as to why the project is behind schedule.

“I don’t want to point any fingers at anybody, but I don’t want fingers pointed at me,” he said. “We’re in the process of putting together a schedule that will reflect where the delays have occurred.”

He said the study should be completed shortly after the new year begins and indicated that there has been more than one factor contributing to the construction delays.

Webster praised Poulin’s direct involvement in the process, noting that he had attended the last meeting of the building committee.

“He was quite aggressive in trying to get issues resolved,” he said.

For his part, Poulin said he wants to concentrate on getting the building finished to everyone’s satisfaction.

“We want a completed project, one that we can be proud of and that the town can be proud of,” he said.

Unlike some public contracts, the school project contract provides no late penalties for missing the completion deadline. Webster said the school department can recoup “liquid damages,” which in this case will amount to the additional cost of running heat in two old, inefficient school buildings.

He said he has not yet calculated what those costs might be.